A review by ralovesbooks
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

2.0

Would recommend: Maybe

I really enjoyed the first half of the book. It has all of these droll, entertaining stories about wacky elemental properties, like how you can make an eponymous disappearing spoon out of gallium, or that ingesting silver turns your skin a permanent shade of purple. (Then I had to return the book to the library because there were so many holds on it that I couldn't renew it. And there are like, a dozen copies in my library system. Who besides me is borrowing this book? It remains to be seen.) However, the second half was full of boring stuff about radioactivity. I mean, I had given up on the idea that this book would actually teach about periodicity, but then it got all academic and strange in the second half. So heavy and dull, and really unfortunate. I did a lot of skimming and hardly any ooh-ing. I don't plan on adding this one to my nerd bookshelf.